176 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



When one observes that these stone horseshoes 

 are placed just at the level of the former sea, their 

 nature becomes plain. They were simply fish traps. 

 Whether the entire set was built when this was a 

 tidal shore, and the sundry rows were meant to 

 serve for higher or lower tides, or whether the traps 

 date from more recent times when this was an in- 

 land (and therefore tideless) sea, and the ranks were 

 built downward in succession as the water line gradu- 

 ally lowered, I must leave to heads more archaeo- 

 logical than mine. When I spoke of the place to one 

 of the Martinez Indians he knew at once what I 

 meant and referred to the objects unhesitatingly as 

 "the old fish-traps." 



A short ride from Martinez took me to Alamo 

 Bonito,^ another Indian village, taking its name 

 from the trees that mark its location from miles 

 away. It is ruled by Jake Razon as capitan, and to 

 him I applied for permission to camp near the water, 

 and for Kaweah's rations of hay. At first he was 

 suspicious, for which I did n't blame him, especially 

 as my military saddle and other traps gave a half- 

 official look to my coming. I had broken in on a 

 family watermelon party too ; but after talking me 

 over while they finished the melon, Jake relented, 

 and again all was hunkydory, as a former host had 

 phrased it. He came over after supper for a chat; 

 but his Anglo-Indian-Spanish was too abstruse for 

 me, and was complicated by one or two original 

 compound idioms that found place in every sen- 

 tence, for instance," Sometime-any time" and "You- 

 * Spanish, alamo = cottonwood; bonito = beautiful. 



